empy places rewrite
by buffyangelinfinitdesire
Summary: buffy gets her say


**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

**"No, that's just it," Buffy said aloud, on the verge of an epiphany. "We've spent all this time worrying about the seal and the hellmouth. Why isn't Caleb guarding them? Why doesn't he have someone there protecting it? Why is he camped out at the vineyard? The bad guys always go where the power is. So if the seal was so important to Caleb and the First, they would be there right now. They're protecting the vineyard or something at the vineyard. I say it's their power, and I say it's time we go in and take it away from them."**

**Faith was the first to speak. "Or, in the alternative, how 'bout...we don't? I mean, it's a neat theory, B, but I'm not going back in that place, not without proof, and neither should you and neither should they."**

**Buffy met her eyes steadily. "I'm not saying it's gonna be easy." **_**Nothing ever is,**_** she added silently to herself.**

**"I think Faith had the floor," Robin commented.**

**Faith continued. "Maybe it ends okay the way you wanna play it, but maybe it doesn't. And right now, I don't think I want you playin' the odds."**

**"Did you come here to fight?" Buffy asked her.**

**"Listen, we're fighters, all of us, but you gotta give me something to fight, something real, not..." she trailed off in search of a word.**

**"Windmills," Giles softly provided, looking at Buffy.**

**But his once protégé was no longer listening. "There is something there."**

**But then neither was he. "Maybe. But we can't be sure of that. This is a hell of a lot to ask."**

**"Too much," Robin agreed.**

**If she could have put a word to what she was feeling now, it would be stunned disbelief. But her mind had gone numb in the face of this deep betrayal. "I...I don't understand this. For seven years, I've kept us safe by doing this, exactly this, making the hard decisions. And now, what, suddenly you're all acting like you can't trust me?"**

**"Didn't you say to me today you can't trust us?" Giles countered. "Maybe there's something there that should be addressed."**

**"Is that why you sent Spike away, to ambush me?"**

**Giles rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Oh, come on."**

**"You know what?" Rona suddenly said. "I am sick of your deal with this Spike guy. This isn't about him. This is about you. You're being reckless."**

**This was the final straw. She could accept Giles' arguments, at least his were experienced based, but one of the potentials criticising her, that was below the belt. "What?"**

**"You are! I don't even know you, and I can tell! You are so obsessed with beating Caleb, you are willing to jump into any plan without thinking."**

**Buffy forced herself to count to ten before replying. "That's not what I'm doing."**

**Kennedy walked up to her. "Well, that's how it feels to us. People are dying."**

**Finally Willow rose. "Kennedy..."**

**"Why are you always standing up for her?",Kennedy yelled.**

**But instead of defending her friend she denied standing up for her, "I'm not."**

**"What do you mean, you're not?",Buffy asked surprise and hurt evident in her voice**

**"With everything that's happened, I'm worried about your judgment." The witch explained**

**"Look, I wish this could be a democracy. I really do. Democracies don't win battles. It's a hard truth, but there has to be a single voice. You need someone to issue orders and be reckless sometimes and not take your feelings into account. You need someone to lead you.",Buffy stated **

**"And it's automatically you," Anya remarked calmly. "You really do think you're better than we are."**

**Again, they misunderstood her. "No, I..."**

**Anya cut her off. "But we don't know. We don't know if you're actually better. I mean, you came into the world with certain advantages, sure. I mean, that's the legacy. But you didn't earn it. You didn't work for it. You've never had anybody come up to you and say you deserve these things more than anyone else. They were just handed to you. So that doesn't make you better than us. It makes you luckier than us."**

**This was the last straw for Buffy, " I earned it. I earned it by saving the world seven times. I earned it by digging out of my own grave. I earned it by going into the masters layer knowing I was going to die. I earned it by being pulled out of heaven and still fighting. I earned it by sticking a sword through the man I loves chest because I had to. **

**I earned it by trying to help faith for months after she went evil. I earned by not going with her. As for being lucky… I have had the entire world on my shoulders since I was sixteen years old, I fight for my life every night. I've been destined to die young. You get to be weak, you don't have to keep a smile on your face when your dieing inside, you get to be selfish without people dying. When you make a mistake everyone tells you it's not your fault, but when I make a mistake you come at me from all sides. Do you honestly think that anyone could lead you any better?"**

"**Faith could, she's a slayer too," Kennedy said.**

**At this Buffy laughed, "Faith? You would choose someone who couldn't handle it for a few months over some one who has fought for seven years, over the most successful slayer in history? What has faith faced? What has she sacrificed? You were just telling me how I didn't earn it but I have never killed anyone I've never tried to end the entire town, I have never betrayed you."**

"**So let's vote.", the potential slayer said haughtily.**

"**no" Buffy said simply.**

"**no what?"**

"**No voting", if you want faith to lead she can lead, if you need me I'll be at the vineyard."**

**And with that she left the house not to return until they admitted there mistakes, which wasn't that long. **


End file.
